The debate about the ethnic origin of the ancient Egyptians has a long history. They arose from the beginning of the 19th century and continue to exist in modern Egyptology. For the longest time in the period from the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, the Caucasian theory of the origin of the ancient Egyptians dominated. No less popular at that time was the Hamitic theory, which was based on assumptions about the Asian origin of civilization. However, during the middle of the 20th century and until its end, the Black Egyptian hypothesis began to spread actively, which nevertheless did not gain sufficient support due to limited evidence. Modern Egyptologists are inclined to consider the origin of the Ancient Egyptians as the indigenous population of the Nile Valley, which in different periods and in different territories interacted with neighboring ethnic groups.
The main theory in the middle of the 19th century and the early 20th century was the Caucasian theory of the origin of the Egyptians. The Caucasian hypothesis of the origin of the ancient Egyptians was proposed in 1844 with the publication of his book on Egyptian ethnography by the American natural scholar Samuel George Morton (Morton 1846). He actively developed a theory about the possibility of identifying a person’s intellectual abilities depending on the structure of his skull, which in turn depended on race. Morton (1846) argued that ancient Egypt was predominantly inhabited by representatives of the Caucasian race, while other races, including the Negroid, were present as servants or slaves. Morton (1846, 121) concluded that “the complexion of the Egyptians did not differ from that of the other Caucasian nations in the same latitude.” Comparison of other features of the structure of the skulls of the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt allowed him to actively develop this theory.
However, the theory of the Caucasian origin of the ancient Egyptians was not the only one at that time. George Robins Gliddon (1844) claimed that the Egyptians were of Asian origin, which gave rise to the Hamitic hypothesis. Supporters of this theory assumed that all cultural achievements, including agriculture and technology, were brought to the territory of Ancient Egypt by the Hamites, a branch of the Caucasian race originated in the Mediterranean region. This theory gained popularity in the early 20th century with the works by Charles Gabriel Seligman (1913) and Giuseppe Sergi (1901). Seligman maintained these theories in his work until the second half of the 20th century. He argued that the Negroids of Africa were static in their development, while the coming wave after wave of Hamites had more advanced weapons and tools, bringing civilization (Saligman 1930). Thus, during the late 19th and early 20th century, the view on the origin of the ancient Egyptians as a branch of the Caucasian race prevailed.
In later periods, starting from the second half of the 20th century, the theory of the Black origin of the Ancient Egyptians began to actively develop. This hypothesis is based on the study of the traits of Tutankhamun and Clopatra, as well as the texts of the Classical Greek historians. One of the first advocates of this theory is the Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop (1974). He claimed that the authors of the classical texts referred to the ancient Egyptians as being black and having dark wooly hair (Diop 1974). The main sources for supporters of the Black Egyptian hypothesis are the works of Herodotus, Strabo and Diodorus. Some debate arose regarding this theory in connection with the interpretation of the term used by Herodotus to describe the features of the appearance of the ancient Egyptians. In particular, the historian uses the term melanchroes for the description of the skin color that is the meaning of which is the subject of controversy (Lloyd 1993). Earlier historians up to the end of the 20th century generally regarded Herodotus and other classical Greek authors as reliable historical sources. However, later writers since the late 20th century and early 21st tend to regard these texts as an unreliable source of historical information.
A more recent critique of the Black Egyptian hypothesis is also based on its potential connection to the Afrocentric movement. In 1984, Frank Martin (1864) emphasizes that the previously dominant theory of the Caucasian origin of the ancient Egyptians is an attempt by the Whites to hide the facts. They note that “distorting the history and the personality of blacks serves a positive social function for the majority white society” (Martin 1984, 315). This theory has given rise to a lengthy debate in ethnography and Egyptology regarding the impact of policy in the area. Okafor (1991), analyzing the theses proposed by Diop, concludes that the hypothesis is based on facts that have been ignored by behind-the-scenes researchers for a long time. At the same time, the author gives a list of the shortcomings of the book, to which the opponents of the Black Egyptian hypothesis appeal, calling them minor.
Even more recent researchers at the beginning of the 21st century actively supported these views. In particular, the work of Morton and Gliddon has often been cited as racist and seeking to perpetuate the myth of Blacks’ inferiority to Whites (Bernasconi 2007). Such assumptions were based on the study that the theory of the Negroid origin of the ancient Egyptians from Ethiopia existed as early as the beginning of the 19th century. However, according to the authors, these facts did not receive due attention due to the superiority of the Whites and their power. The researchers who promoted the early Black Egyptian hypothesis were not heard, while European and American Egyptologists appealing to the Caucasian origin of the ancient Egyptians were able to receive due attention.
The Afrocentric view that this hypothesis emphasized was not widely accepted by Egyptologists. Opponents of the Black Egyptian hypothesis have noted that although the ancient Egyptians had dark skin, they were not Negroid (Lefkowitz & Rogers 1996). Lefkowitz and Rogers (1996) have issued an extensive critique by Egyptologists of this theory. In particular, Egyptologists argue that claims of a Black origin for the Ancient Egyptians are not well founded and are derived from a misinterpretation of the actual evidence. Additionally, researchers criticize the suggestion that classical Greek civilization was also founded by the Black Ancient Egyptians proposed by Martin Bernal (1987) on the basis of linguistic comparison.
Modern research supports a multicultural view of the ethnic composition of the population of ancient Egypt. First of all, they emphasize that the features of the origin of the Ancient Egyptians should be considered both on the basis of the periods of development of civilization and geography (Matić 2020). Stuart Tyson Smith (2018) emphasizes that the population of ancient Egypt was shaped by the constant interaction of various ethnic groups in the region. This assumption gives grounds for a modern view of the multicultural ethnic composition of the civilization of Ancient Egypt, which originated in the territory of Ancient Egypt. Modern research supports a multicultural view of the ethnic compositiAndrea Manzo (2022) does not deny the influence of the African origin on the Ancient Egyptians, but notes that they were more closely related to the ethnic groups of the Near East. Modern researchers criticize the theories that dominated the 19th-20th century for limitations in methodology, including the selectivity of samples for analysis. Thus, a modern view of the ethnicity of the Ancient Egyptians emphasizes their development as the indigenous population of the Nile Valley, which actively interacted with other ethnic groups in Africa, the Mediterranean and the Near East.
At the moment in Egyptology, a growing number of scholars are rejecting the Eurocentric or Eurocentric view of the origins of the ancient Egyptians in favor of a multicultural perspective. The theories of past centuries do not have sufficient evidence to be unambiguously accepted. Modern Egyptologists continue to debate the ethnic origins of the Ancient Egyptians. However, modern researchers emphasize that the ethnic composition of the population of Ancient Egypt changed throughout the history of the development of civilization and varied in different territories. The ancient Egyptians were probably the indigenous people of the Nile Valley who were influenced by neighboring ethnic groups. This is reflected in both genetic, external, cultural, linguistic and other features of civilization that are currently available for study.
References
Bernal, Martin. 1987. Black Athena: The Linguistic Evidence. Rutgers University Press.
Bernasconi, Robert. 2007. “Black Skin, White Skulls: The Nineteenth Century Debate over the Racial Identity of the Ancient Egyptians.” Parallax 13, no. 2: 6-20.
Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1974. The African Origin of Civilization. Lawrence Hill Books.
Gliddon, George R. 1844. Ancient Egypt: Her Monuments, Hieroglyphics, History and Archæology, and Other Subjects Connected with Hieroglyphical Literature. Winchester.
Lefkowitz, Mary, and Guy MacLean Rogers. 1996. Black Athena Revisited. University of North Carolina Press.
Lloyd, Alan. 1975. Herodotus. Brill.
Manzo, Andrea. 2022. Ancient Egypt in its African Context: Economic Networks, Social and Cultural Interactions. Cambridge University Press.
Martin, Frank. 1984. “The Egyptian Ethnicity Controversy and the Sociology of Knowledge.” Journal of Black Studies 14, no. 3 (March): 295-325.
Matić, Uroš. 2020. Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs: Past and Present Approaches in Egyptology. Cambridge University Press.
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Okafor, Victor O. 1991. “Diop and the African Origin of Civilization: An Afrocentric Analysis.” Journal of Black Studies 22, no. 2 (December): 252-268.
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Seligman, C.G. 1913. “Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 43 (July-December): 593–705.
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Smith, Stuart T. 2018. “Gift of the Nile? Climate Change, the Origins of Egyptian Civilization and Its Interactions within Northeast Africa.” In the Across the Mediterranean – Along the Nile: Studies in Egyptology, Nubiology and Late Antiquity Dedicated to László Török edited by Tamás A. Bács, Ádám Bollók and Tivadar Vida, 325-345. Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.